Soft Arkasas for reprofiling 154-CM ?

[Jamesh Bond]

Id like to reprofile my Mini Commander to a more acute angle. Obviously i need something narrow enough for the recurve, and as aggressive as possible. Finding the means to do this cheaply has proved difficult. Far as i can tell, you cant get diamond rods in coarse. Edge pro, wicked edge, and diamond sharpmaker stones are also out. This is basically a one time job, so i dont want to spend much.

So ...

I found a Smith's soft arkansas pocket stone for seven bucks. The shape will work, but im wondering if the abrasive is agressive enough to handle Emerson's 154-CM. My limited experience with natural abrasives seems to remind me they cut really slow. Time is one thing, but accuracy diminishes every time you swipe the blade, so a wimpy abrasive wont cut it.

Think it will work ? Any other ideas for a cheap, one time reprofile of a recurve?

Thx.

 

[Jason B.]

The Arkansas stone will not work very well, 154cm is some tough stuff.I would recommend the Norton combo India stone, just slightly rounding the edge will allow you to easily sharpen any recurve. Like this,View attachment 521911

(would someone like to explain why its so difficult to post pictures?)

 

[dr_fosg8]

Could just wrap some SiC sandpaper around a 1.5 or 2 inch piece of pvc pipe. Cheap and a variety of grits readily available at local hardware store. Works good for recurve blades.

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

SiC stone would work also. Norton's 'Economy' stone in SiC (6" Coarse/Fine double-sided) can be rounded at the edges pretty easily, by rubbing with a cheap AlOx coarse stone, or it could likely be done on concrete as well. I rounded the edges on one of mine with an AlOx 'tile rubbing stone', both of which I found at Home Depot. A larger 8" SiC stone can be found at ACE Hardware as well, and not expensive at ~$10-$12, I believe.

As for diamond rods, EZE-Lap has an oval diamond 'steel' in 10" length that could work as well. Grit is roughly similar to DMT's Fine, maybe slightly more aggressive. Not very expensive either, at around $22 if I recall correctly. I have one, picked up at the local outdoors/sporting goods outlet, and immediately thought of it's potential for recurved blades when I bought it.


David

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

The problem with natural stones is that they mostly rely on quartz as their abrasive, which is not as hard as the carbides found in a lot of higher end steels. You can wear away at the regular steel in the matrix but it leaves the carbides exposed without supporting material around them and then they break off under light cutting, leading to premature dulling and negating the point of having the carbides in the first place. Better off with an inexpensive silicon carbide or aluminum oxide stone, which will be hard enough to do the job properly.

 

[Jamesh Bond]

Thx for saving me a couple bucks guys. Prolly just round the corner offa my old Norton SiC stone and go that route. Still dreading it tho ...

I hate reprofiling goofy blades.